In the United Kingdom, a teacher was banned from the profession indefinitely for reporting a transgender student on social media.

According to The daily mailIn May 2023, a whistleblower alerted the anonymous Manchester school where Camilla Hannan, 54, had taught since 2001, that Hannan had posted offensive, anti-trans sentiments on X, then known as Twitter. In one of his posts, Hannan even called out the name of a transgender student.

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“Where I teach, we have a gender identity policy,” Hannan wrote in a post accompanied by an eye-rolling emoji. “It’s a bunch of senseless bullshit, as you can imagine.”

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In another post, Hannan wrote that she taught a student who changed his mind. pronounsgoing so far as to include the student’s name in her message. “I worry about the next steps,” she wrote.

“Where I teach, trans kids are untouchable,” she wrote in another post. “They get everything they ask for and all the staff and other students are petrified of upsetting them. They do not seem to me any more oppressed than oppressors.

In two other posts, she appears to suggest a connection between autism and being transgender, writing that her autistic students “are all covered in trans flags and badges, without exception.”

Studies which showed that transgender and non-binary people are more likely to be autistic than cisgender people have been misused to fuel the anti-trans and ableist narrative that there is something “wrong” with transgender and non-binary people and that their gender identity is the result of mental illness . Some trans and non-binary people on the spectrum suggest that the real link is that autistic people are less likely to feel the need to conform to social pressures related to gender.

THE Manchester Evening News reports that in August of this year, Hannan admitted to writing these messages. An Education Regulatory Agency misconduct hearing was held to resolve the matter, and in September a panel concluded that she had shared the private medical information of the student named to her position at without the knowledge or consent of the student. The panel noted that she also “repeatedly misgendered” the student.

A report from the panel said it found that Hannan “had a deeply ingrained attitude and that, although she was entitled to have that attitude and to hold the views she held, it was not acceptable that she published them on social networks in a manner detrimental to the profession, to the School, to the students and in particular to the student,” she denounced. The panel said Hannan’s behavior was inconsistent with a teacher’s duty to be a role model for students and the community at large.

According to the Manchester Evening NewsHannan blamed her posts on her frustration with her workload and admitted she showed “poor judgment.” In a statement, she said she “bears no malice or ill will towards trans people” and respects “their right to live as they please and to ask others to refer to them by their names and pronouns of their choice. Daily Mail reported. However, she added that she was concerned about so-called “gender ideology” – a clear anti-trans dog whistle – in schools.

But according to the Manchester Evening Newsthe panel noted that Hannan’s remorse seemed “somewhat selfish.” They said the fact she believed her messages were anonymous suggested her remorse “stemmed from being caught, rather than thoughts about her own behaviour”.

The panel banned Hannan from teaching indefinitely. She will have the opportunity to appeal the decision in two years.

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